Dear Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

I suppose you could say I have deeply immersed myself in a self-made course called, ‘The life and times of Dr. Jordan B.Peterson.’ I have been reading your book, Maps of Meaning (Routledge, 1999), reading about you online, watching videos about you, listening to your podcasts and listening to podcasts where you are the guest (Joe Rogan, Sam Harris 1 & 2), and intently watching many of your videos about psychology, myth and narrative, maps of meaning, personality, and your position with regard to Canadian Bill C-16. I think you are brave to tackle the controversial issue of free speech and political correctness, especially as it applies to life at university and educational institutions, but I am even more grateful for access to your instruction about Jung, narrative, psychoanalysis, and the humanities in general.

My readers can inform themselves by listening to your videos and podcasts because I can’t quite do your argument about political correctness justice here, nor can I adequately describe the depth and breadth of your knowledge about psychology, philosophy, history, and human nature. All I really want to say is thank you— for making me think even more deeply and critically about myself and others, about the notion of identity and social groups, as well as the nature of good and evil, and the power and value of language. I especially enjoyed your talk called “The Necessity of Virtue” and both my son and I found your self-authoring program helpful.

One of the goals at Landscapes for Learning is to celebrate our shared humanity through storytelling and to spotlight all sorts of fabulous teaching and learning that occurs across the various landscapes of life (internal and external, near and far). The stories collected will not be limited to academia or famous, “successful” people. I believe you are an ordinary person doing extraordinary things with your particular talents.

I have included a comment I found about one of your YouTube videos below because it articulates the importance of your voice in modern civic discourse today which is in desperate need of rehabilitation:

“The people who criticize Dr. Peterson in the comments below just based on what he’s expressing here would be well served to go to his channel and start listening to some of his lectures on philosophy, psychology, ideology, and how these ideas work in history and social contexts. His insights transcend the extremes of any ideology. The various polarizing extremes of ideology that are dominating modern civic discourse have deep roots in human and social group psychology, which has been a dominant theme in his various lectures, as I have interpreted them.

People, as a general rule, have almost no understanding of basic psychology, and by extension, have no real control over themselves and what they think. And I would suggest that people are already at a point in social conditioning that they have been wired to act in an dictated manner, without even realizing it. And since they act in a way that they have been programmed to feel is “doing the right thing”, it’s an ego reward and feeds that behavior to react. And that’s a big piece of what is going on in modern discourse, the majority are acting as reactionaries. They are actively seeking things out to react to, typically in a negative manner. It’s a vicious cycle and it’s not only extremely unhealthy for social systems, it’s likely just as unhealthy for the individual.

I’ve said it over and over, if people want to improve the world, or political systems, or whatever, the best thing they could do is get a basic handle of human psychology and their own psychology. Until people understand how their own mind works, they can never solve anything outside of it, and will continue to be manipulated by insidious external forces they aren’t even aware of.

Dr. Peterson analyzes philosophy, psychology, history, social systems, etc, and the ways they intersect with critically deep insight. Before you dismiss him based on one lecture, do yourself a favor and listen to more of his work. The best lectures on philosophy I’ve listened to are by Dr. Peterson…”
—-Strangersound, Youtube, March 28, 2017

Your work has reaffirmed and positively contributed to the way I teach my high school students to be heroes in their own lives. By trying to understand their human nature through the examination of archetypal stories as these pertain to their own personal psychology, I think they may be on a path to awakening and finding real meaning in their young lives, rather than blindly adhering to the cultural values of overconsumption, narcissism, and extreme egocentrism. Also, your comments about writing have been added to my repertoire in helping young people understand the value of lifelong learning, precise language, the power of logical argumentation, and writing skill.

You have an amazing ability to articulate your interpretation of the human psyche and the world and its contemporary array of problems and suffering in the context of your knowledge and understanding of history and psychology. Even if people disagree with some or almost all of what you teach, they cannot possibly deny that you are informed, articulate, and dedicated to the service to something much bigger than yourself.